Presidential Leadership Change and Foreign Policy Roll-Call Voting in the U.S. Senate

Abstract

pute the assertion that most of the major decisions in this area of policy have been executive decisions. Yet, although the President and the foreign affairs bureaucracy have assumed preeminent leadership in managing the relations of the United States with the rest of the world, formal control over foreign policy remains fragmented and congressional participation in a variety of activities has continued.' Control over appropriations in particular remains a major instrument of congressional influence upon the executive.2 If a President is to be an effective foreign policy leader vis-a-vis Congress, he must depend heavily upon the members of his own party for core support. Should the President's party be in the minority in one or both houses, a strictly partisan leadership strategy would of course be tantamount to inviting failure. Furthermore, even if his party is in the majority, he will find it advantageous to cultivate bipartisan support, if for no other reason than to present the face of consensus to allies and enemies alike in the community of nations. It is a fact that members of the President's party in Congress tend to give him somewhat more support than members of the opposition party in roll-call voting on foreign policy issues. For example, in the Senate in 1969 (91st Congress, 1st Session), the average Presidential Foreign Policy Support Score (a Congressional Quarterly measure) of the Republicans was 71.3 percent, while the average Democratic score was 65.1 percent.3 Although this is not a strikingly large difference, it is significant (not in a statistical sense) if one considers that the roll calls upon which the scores are based were among the most important in the session. Under such conditions various other strong pressures (e.g., constituency, interest groups, committees) are more likely to be exerted on senatorial voting. In other words, it is